How to Butcher an Entire Lamb: Every Cut of Meat Explained | Handcrafted | Bon Appetit

my name is Justin Williams I'm a butcher at Harlem shambles and today we're going to butcher our whole lamb into all the cuts that you would typically see in a butcher's case first off we're going to remove the neck the neck is a cut that would be used for stews or stocks not necessarily to be used on its own but it very well can be you can debone the entire neck wrap it up with some herbs and make a very nice roast out of it but also if you're making any type of super stock the neck is probably one of the first places I go to to get as much flavor and bang for my buck up next we're going to take off the shoulder section the way that we're doing it here is to find the fifth and sixth rib which is where we want to define the shoulder from the ribs this animal weighs around 50 pounds and we can expect just about a 100 percent yield since we're working with the whole animal here every single thing on the animal spiring lands are anything that's too unpalatable you can use for a good use be it the bones be it any excess fat any meat that's trimmed down off of a cut that you intend to then tie or turn into a chop of some sort up next we're going to focus on the rib section by counting how many ribs we have in the lamb in the first place the lamb can grow to either have eight ribs in the rib section or nine ribs we got lucky this time so somebody's going to get a rack with nine ribs on it the rib section is typically what would be seen as a rib eye on a cow you get your rack of lamb you can also get some cuts that aren't typically seen in many butchers cases such as the lamb breast which is great for tying into a roast you also get the spare ribs which don't look like much on the lamb but I think you'll be pleasantly surprised the next thing I'm doing is I'm removing the kidneys and kidney fat from the loin or the saddle because if that were a horse that's where you would sit and put them right to the side save it for that kidney pie that you're trying to make or a pie crust with that lamb fat here I'm looking for where the top of the sirloin bone is in respect to the back of the saddle one I find that I know I want to cut as close as I can to that sir one so that my saddle section is as large as I can get it and then after I'm through all the bone I then finished my cut through the other side and I should then have my full and complete saddle so these are the primal cuts that you will get from a Lam you first have the neck the shoulders the rib the saddle the kidneys and kidney fat and the legs next I'm going to break down the shoulder the first thing I'm going to do is split the shoulders in half and deal with them independently and we'll first do that by sawing right through the middle of the spine to then have two equal halves of it so now that the shoulder split I'll then be taking off one of the shanks so that we can do a boneless shoulder roast the shank can be treated as its own cut to then be braised it can go in the soup anything that's low and slow with a moderate amount of moisture then you can end up with a really nice braised down tender cut of meat lamb is different in the way that it has a specific flavor profile to it which lends itself to different applications than you would normally find in beef pork and chicken mostly that's due to unsaturated fats being very prevalent in the animal which then oxidize and give themselves off a sort of unjust gamey flavor moreso in overseas Lambs and you would see an American lamb but at the same time it opens up a completely different profile to cooking with meat in general so now what we're doing is we're exposing the meat off of the blade bone and writing a seam that separates basically the brisket and the rest of the shoulder and we're also going to trim some of the unnecessary fat and fascia just to get everything nice and evenly shaped so right now we're going around and underneath the shoulder blade we're trying to keep that flat iron and that Scotch tender of the lamb nice and intact to keep as much me than the roast as possible it's best to work around the bone and just make sure that the tip of your knife stays on them staying very shallow and making your cuts very precise and having the animal work around you not so much you working around the animal moving the cut around constantly definitely helps out in this case so now we're going to do a little bit more tunneling since there's a bit of a pocket where the shoulder blade then goes into the arm bone all you need to do is get a little bit of a quick twist and you can hold them both out so we have our blade bone remove now we're gonna finish tunneling out the rest of that arm bone right there so just a few more careful cuts on the inside of that shoulder meat and then we should be able to do a quick little twist and spin and just pop it right out so then we go ahead and start trimming off some of the undesirable parts such as this little stamp that the USDA puts on the Lambs which that's actually blueberry juice that they use to stamp them so it's perfectly edible but it's not always the best appearance and may end up coloring your final product and then we're going to start tying up the roast for tying it's always best to start in the center and define the tightness of the roll that you're trying to get and then you work slightly from one end to another and then fill in the gaps as you go along I would treat the boneless shoulder roast as a dry roast salt pepper quick sear on all sides put in a pan with aromatics and herbs and then cook until medium round inside deglaze the pan with ginger and beer and you have yourself a wonderful dinner here are the cuts from the breakdown in the shoulder we're going to come back to the other side of the shoulder a little later on the bandsaw to make round bone chops blade bone chops and get the other four shank off next I'm going to break down the rib section to break down the ribs we're going to start by removing the spine or chime bone with the handsaw what this does is allow us to expose the meat of the rack of lamb itself and also separate the spare ribs and breasts from that Center bone sawing through the lamb is tough at times because you have a good amount of fat on the outside which can lend itself to being a little slippery and at the same since you don't have the weight of the animal being very heavy that just then stresses steady and thorough motions that you should use with a knife or saw so now what we're going to do is define where the rack of lamb is going to stop and where the spare ribs are going to start you definitely have the choice between using a bandsaw our hand saw since there are small and brittle bones you will be able to preserve the integrity and have a bit of a cleaner cut on the bandsaw but here at shambles we try to do everything old-school bass and just like with the rest of the animal once I get through the bone I'll stop and then switch over to a knife to finish my cut I used those scimitar knife because it has a nice wide spine which gives it enough have to get through heavier meat also if I really need to I could just slam down on the spine and finish through the rest of a bone the ribs are definitely the most praised and popular part of the lamb which on their own right the great tiny morsels of that perfect lamb flavor that people seek out so much and here just being very careful to making well-thought-out long strokes with the handsaw you're able to sort through the bones without getting a bunch of breakage or any splinters which would then end up to be an adverse result so now we're separating the spare rib tips from the actual spare ribs that we're going to do st. louis-style just meaning that's a nice rectangular rack of ribs and we're going to actually separate the ribs there's a good amount of space in between so I'm just lining everything up making sure it's nice and straight making sure that all your ribs come out exactly even is quite important to make sure that no one gets an overcooked rib whereas everybody else is enjoying a nice succulent fall-off-the-bone rib nice and even cuts contributes to an easier time getting every single thing to come out exactly the same way with this side of the spare ribs what we're actually going to do is come underneath all those little rib bones and cut away the breast from the spare ribs this is similar to what you would see on a pig as being the belly but being that the lamb is not as large of an animal you don't get that big of a result but the flavor that you get from it is its result within itself with this you can cure it and make some bacon out of it you can also stuff it and tie it as a roast you can tie the breasts around a more lean part of the animal if you don't think it has enough fat to really carry it and keep it moist so now we are going to French a rack of lamb frenching is removing the meat from the tip of the bones to expose the bone and gives it a really nice appearance pretty display here I'm removing a remnant of the shoulder blade also after you chime the rack there will be a tendon that runs down the top of the spine that needs to be removed as well it just doesn't have any added benefit it doesn't break down when you cook it so it's best to leave it off entirely now what we're doing here is scoring in between each bone about an inch down just so that we can define where the end of our frenching is going to be what helps a lot is to make sure that you get through the membrane then you can peel it back along the side of the bones and then when you're ready with your clean paper towel you can then peel that whole section of meat that you scored on both sides and remove it totally and then you should come out with nice clean perfect looking French rack of lamb bones they're the meat that comes off after frenching is definitely great to be used in your grinds or your trim it has a good amount of fat to it and there's a good amount of meat as well again we're trying to work with zero waste trying to get every useable piece of meat so now with the other side of the rack we are going to make the lamb Wasat which is basically the entire rack of lamb debone and rolled around itself just like with the first one we have a little bit of shoulder blade that we have to get through so we're going to cut around that and then what we're going to do is come right underneath the rib bones and just as we were with the shoulder going very close to the bone preserving as much meat as possible making sure that you get a nice sizable roast to feed everybody that is going at the dinner table we're gonna find our little tendon there and take it right out just like the other one and then we're just going to roll it from the meat side going around then we go ahead and make sure everything's secure by tying the roast up here's our breakdown of the rib section next we're going to tackle the loin section of the limb the first thing we're going to do is remove some of the leftover glands and fashio that come from where the kidneys used to sit then we're going to do some internal shaping that will definitely yield you a nice meaty looking roast the loin can end up as a lot of different things you can make you're going double chops which is basically a face cut off of the entire front side and you can cut those in half for tiny little loin porterhouses you can also debone the entire sensor spine from the lamb and once again tie it roast it and do a lot of very cool interesting things with it the spring lambs tend to be a bit larger and will give you more meat and fat more chops out of your loin so depending on the time of year that you procure your lamb you might end up with a larger lamb or a smaller lamb that will then determine how much yield you would get out of it so here's the breakdown on the loin later we're going to take the loin onto the bandsaw and see what type of cuts we can get out of it here now we're going to tackle the legs so the first thing we want to do with the legs is separate them and treat them individually so what I'll do is make a little incision at the center of the legs just to separate the meat and show me where the center of the hip bone is then with a nice couple of whacks with a cleaver we're going to separate the bottom of the hip itself so that we can then start to cut away the sirloin and the rest of the leg from that hip we're going to start to peel one leg away from the curved bones in that hip width you just basically want to stay on the edge of just to make sure that you keep as much meat on the cut as possible and I like to make a little guy line down the back of the spine to where the tail is so that I can designate where one leg stops in the other leg begins so I'm just working around every little curved bone trying to keep all the meat into the leg and the sirloin itself and there you have one side of the leg completely removed whole animal butchery is different in the way that you actually have two chances when you're working with the whole animal so one leg of the lamb can turn into stew and kebabs and stir-fry whereas the other way can turn into a roast you can do some really incredible things and just have a wide range of options next we're going to take a look at the leg and find the separation between the shank and the leg itself by making just again a tiny little incision and here I'm using the gravity by bending the heavier part of the leg away from me and holding onto the shank which then tends to expose exactly where I'm cutting so here we're going to trim off some of the internal fat and fashio some glands as well that might get in the way when tying a roast so in the leg there's a pretty sizable Glen that should definitely be removed before you start cooking it just won't provide us any nutritional benefit of value to then expose the femur bone we started by making a nice long cut down one side of the bone and then we start slowly working down and around the edge of the femur bone to then free it up away from the inside of the leg then you'll be left with the kneecap at the bottom which needs to come off and now we're just going to trim away some of the fat that may not contribute to the particular cut that we're making but definitely needs to be saved and used for any sort of grind or any other fat application you might have and then we're going to go and trim away some offend outside just to give us a nice lean look to our lamb butchering tends to be more of a reductive process like someone who works on ice sculptures would do they have a big block and then by taking away they then form something beautiful so you're trying to take away as little as possible but also know when it's necessary to take something away to give you the best result possible so now with the other leg we're going to take a bit of a different approach we're still going to remove the shank once again we're also going to take away anything that's unnecessary fat fashio any sort of glands the thing we're going to do differently with this one is instead of keeping all the muscles intact to then form a roast we're going to separate the muscles from each other so that we can then judge which muscles will be used for which purpose be it stir-fry stew or any particular type of roast or small cut that we'd want to use a leaner muscle for so we're going to trim away some in that fashion and get away anything that would be intrusive to what we're trying to do with this specific lamb so after that fat is gone we have our seams exposed so you take one seam and start to follow it down here it's a bottom round which is great for our kabobs or our stew also if you cut against the grain you get that really good stir-fry that you're looking for as well I'm basically just working my way around the lamb and removing the separate parts like the piece of fillet that runs through the sirloin mm that's considered the filet mignon on the lamb is very tender so next I'm pulling out the top round so just go slow go shell follow a seam and eventually the muscle will peel away from the rest of the leg so next I'm separating the rest of the large muscles from the femur and pulling the bone itself out and then we can start cleaning up some of these major muscles and putting them into their respective applications so I'm now going to take this cut and trim off any silver skin and I'm going to cut into more manageable sections and we're going to turn this piece in the stew so we're going to do some nice good sized chunks that will break down get a little bit smaller once it cooked over low and slow heat and end up with some really nice meaty fall-apart stew after you have your mussels all cleaned up and exposed it's great to take a look at the striations on the muscle and see what direction the muscle is heading into if you're doing stir-fry you definitely want to cut against the striations to give you a small or grain at the end of the day what it will do is contribute to the tenderness and have it cook a little bit easier the muscle fibers will end up to be shorter when you cut against the grain than longer so it's less work for your teeth to have to chew through the leg of the lamb is the leanest cut that you can get from it so you won't have as much fat as you would any other part which means you have a lot of muscles that are working quite hard therefore these are cuts that you would typically use in a stew or a braise something that will cook low and slow over a long period of time that will let that meat get very very tender and fall off the bone I like to think of butchery from a cook's perspective because at the end of the day some was taking everything that we cut up for them and then they're having to make a meal out of it so once you think about what this is going to go to how will will look after it's cooked it makes my job a lot easier to go into such detail and just make sure that even without me being there the end results of what a customer will be doing with it will be fabulous so here's the breakdown of the leg of lamb next we're going to head over to the bandsaw and cut down the neck the shoulder and the loin so plain the neck on the bandsaw allows us again in smaller manageable pieces easier to fit into a pot if you don't have a bandsaw with a steady hand you can definitely use a handsaw or the large enough pot to fit the entire neck in and just give it enough time to fully break down the most important tip with it is to keep everything steady make sure that everything comes out even because even cuts cook at the same exact time as everything else around it if you cut on one side of the shoulder you will get your brown bone chops and if you turn your shoulder 45 degrees you will be able to get your blade bone chops so we're cutting these at about an inch in thickness which yields you a nice good steak with some nice bones you can end up chewing on at the end of the meal the loin we're also cutting at about an inch to get some nice thick steaks it's like a steak in that you don't have the marbling in the meat all the fat will be on the outside so a good approach to cooking this in a pan would be to flip it on its side and to get a nice senior rendered down some of the fat gives you a nice crispy outer layer to it but also remember that it will keep it moist so basting also works very well the most important thing to remember is to make sure that every cut comes out straight and even also cleaning off all the bone dust that will gather on to your cut as you've made it lamb chops should be treated pretty much as a steak to try and get your internal temperature correct that you're looking for to try and get that nice sear that you're looking for on the outside flavor pairings then start to open up quite nicely adding some blue cheese really gets to add on to that whole funk vibe that you get from lamb you can also use a wide range of sauces as you would finish a stake in and herbs also make a great addition the antioxidants and the herbs work against the oxidizing of the saturated fats within that lamb shoulder and these are all the cuts that we will get from the bandsaw with all the trim that we have left over from breaking down the entire lamb we're going to grind that up and then we're going to make ourselves some more guest sausage so we have our mirga's all mixed up and ready to go and we're basically stuffing our sausage stuffer making sure that we don't have any air holes or any pockets which could result in someone's sausage bursting on them when they're cooking so after our sausage stuffer is nice and full we'll start to then even out our sausage then comes to put the casing on the horn it's best to run a little bit of water through the casing to make sure that everything's nice and lubricated and you have no issues with the casing catching so we're going to be using a lamb casing which is the small intestines of the lamb it's quite a finicky thing to work with but with a little bit of practice in a steady hand you shouldn't have any issues making sure that everything is cold is one of the most important parts of making a sausage the warmer your sausage gets one it becomes a food safety issue but then you the fats start smearing and then you don't have the separation between the meat and the fat that then helps to cook the sausage when a heat is applied to it and that's a completed Merguez sausage and finally here are all the cuts that you would typically see in the butcher's case from a whole lamb

Channel: Bon Appétit

Views: 4,073,885

Keywords: butcher, butchery, how to, lamb, mutton, spare ribs, shoulder, lamb chop, rack of lamb, lamb meat, lamb breast, shoulder roast, lamb chops, leg of lamb, how to butcher, beautiful butchery, lamb butcher, stir fry lamb, lamb noisette, justin williams, cooking lamb, cutting lamb, butchering, butchering a lamb, butchering a cow, butchering a pig, lamb recipe, how to cook lamb, lambs, lamb cuts, cuts of lamb, how to butcher a lamb, sheep, food, bon appetit, bon appétit

Id: Uq_GB3ldQW8

Length: 22min 42sec (1362 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 30 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/garr1s0n]

Videos like this are why Bon Appetit is one of my favorite youtube channels/instagram profiles. They do a great job of breaking down even the most intimidating aspects of food prep (such as the art of butchery, in this instance) into something very easy to digest (pun absolutely intended).

Also they brought us It's Alive with Brad Leone, so that's cool.

[u/BlarpUM]

not baaaaaaad

[u/Corojo]

Ok, some notes.

First of all, loved his style, but was really uncomfortable with the crazy long hair and long beard with no beard or hair nets. Someones getting hair in their food.

Next, as was said above, the "got lucky" with 9 rib rack was so bad. There is the same number of ribs in every animal, he just left one extra rib in the rack instead of in the chuck or the loin. All 4 legged domestic animals have 13 ribs, in lamb, they are generally broken down as follows: 5 in the chuck, 8 in the rack, and one in the loin. This can be varied, but it does not mean one got "lucky".

The whole Blueberry Juice thing. I have heard this before. My understanding is that USDA stamps are food grade dye, not necessarily any sort of fruit juice.

His cutting technique is very interesting, and "stylistic" but he would not be allowed in my cut shop, the ammount of times I saw a knife hit the meet while he removed the off hand and sliced like a samauri or something made me very uncomfortable: Example.

This is totally a little thing, but "The sirloin of lamb, which is like the fillet mignon of lamb", no actually the fillet mignon of lamb is the fillet mignon of lamb! Lamb (like beef, pork, veal) has a tenderloin too!

Back to the gloves/saftey thing, using that band saw with no protection makes me REALLY nervous at that close range. If you are splitting the carcass, sure, but if you are cutting those small cuts, you are asking to lose a finger.

I have more notes, but will add later. I generally like them, but a lot of times these "whole carcass butcher shop" guys make it out to be this glorious "use everything" deal, but in reality, there is a LOT of carcass to use for many different preparations. Most of the time, a restaurant or chef needs more than 2 lamb racks and still have 48lbs of other stuff to use before you can get another 2 lamb racks, if that makes sense.

[u/mrcheeks1944]

I'm so hungry now.... ramen noodles it is

[u/[deleted]]

Someday when the lambs take over the world and are of supreme intelligence, they will have videos on how to butcher humans.

[u/[deleted]]

He sure made a cute creature look so tasty!

[u/KneegrowAids]

damn, will.i.am having a hard time making ends meet, i see

[u/2011Canucks]

Damn. That bandsaw is huge

[u/PmMeYour_Breasticles]

The very first cut he makes seems dangerous. Any reason he dangles it over the table instead of keeping it on the table?